Bangladesh National Museum
national museum of Bangladesh
The Bangladesh National Museum (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ জাতীয় জাদুঘর, romanized: Bānlādēśa Jātīẏa Jādughara) is the national repository of Bangladesh's cultural and historical artifacts, located in the Shahbag area of Dhaka.
The museum was established on 20 March 1913, under the name Dhaka Museum, and was formally inaugurated on 7 August 1913. With an initial collection of 379 objects, it was opened to the public on 25 August 1914. After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the institution was reorganized under the name Bangladesh National Museum, incorporating various parts of the former Dhaka Museum, and was formally inaugurated in its present form in 1983. The museum has departments of ethnography and decorative art, history and classical art, natural history, and world civilization. Artifacts from the prehistoric era to contemporary history are displayed here, which include over 50,000 ancient and medieval coins, Buddhist sculptures from the Gandhara period, and exhibits related to the 1971 Liberation War.
History
In 1855, the Asiatic Society of Bengal proposed establishing a museum in Dhaka, but it was postponed due to logistical constraints. Later, in 1907, this initiative re-emerged among the elite class of Dhaka. Following this, on 20 March 1913, the Dhaka Museum was formally established by the government of undivided Bengal. It was initially located in a room of the old Secretariat building (later part of Dhaka Medical College Hospital).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bangladesh National Museum” as national museum of Bangladesh. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as national museum of Bangladesh. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q51876. VIAF identifies the subject as 151335326. The Library of Congress control number is n85141516. Authority coordinates are 23.738, 90.394. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1914, 1971 and 1983.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bangladesh National Museum”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bangladesh National Museum primary sources, Bangladesh National Museum archive and Bangladesh research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bangladesh National Museum”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bangladesh National Museum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.